


Rather Than Eternity Without It

by DragoJustine



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M, Multi, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-07
Updated: 2008-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:26:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragoJustine/pseuds/DragoJustine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yes, Zach is cast as Zachary Levi. What? I like the image of Lee Pace sucking on Zach Levi's fingers, okay? I'm only human.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Rather Than Eternity Without It

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Zach is cast as Zachary Levi. What? I like the image of Lee Pace sucking on Zach Levi's fingers, okay? I'm only human.

Chuck picks her mark and slides into the booth next to him. He looks her up and down, all sunflower-yellow dress and pigtails, and starts to speak.

She holds her finger up abruptly. "Please don’t ask me what a nice girl like me is doing in a place like this. I'm doing exactly what you'd expect me to be doing. And the offer is very much appreciated, but I'm not drinking right now." She beams like she's just made a friend, instead of just smacked him down. 

"Ooookay…." The guy says, from suavely confident to befuddled just that quickly. Easily made nervous. She likes that in a man, and yes, she's been told that's weird. 

"My name's Chuck. Yours?" And she extends a hand as though she's meeting him at the church potluck, instead of a thoroughly questionable club. He takes it. 

"Zach." He's a good pick; lanky, tall but not quite as tall, the right body type, hot enough to be attractive but not quite hot enough to be obviously hotter than Ned. Got a lot more hair than Ned, a thick head of slightly wavy, nearly black, not to his shoulders but enough to really get her hands in. Yeah, he'll do. 

"Well, Zach, the deal is this. I find you extremely attractive, and from that look up and down you obviously feel the same way, and I'd really like to bring you home and sleep with you tonight. Obviously you've figured out by now that I'm not big on beating around the bush, so to speak, so what do you say?" 

She finishes on a perky head-tilt and wide smile, keep him off his game. She waits just long enough for him to open his mouth and for a blush to spread across his face that looks to be about equal parts excitement and embarrassment, before she raises that preemptory finger again.

"Except there's a catch. I probably should have mentioned the catch. You see that guy in the booth over there? The one with the thick eyebrows and whimsical charm?" She waggles her fingers at Ned and he waves back. "He's straight, and he doesn’t actually want to touch you. But the two of us, we're a package deal, and we're looking--" and she drops the perky wide-eyed act and stares Zach straight in the eye, with an intensity that will hopefully let him know she's looking for exactly what she says she's looking for, because so far she's hasn't managed to make a man actually believe her-- "for somebody who can follow orders." 

He shifts in his seat, almost a squirm, and drops his eyes to the tabletop. His flush doesn't fade, and it abruptly looks like all her searching might have paid off. 

"It's pretty simple, really. I touch you, and you touch me, and he's hands-off." Chuck's no good at being seductive. She'd never had the opportunity, before she died, and she hadn't even tried since until she started trying to make this happen, and then she learned pretty quickly that it sat badly on her, like a cheap mask, and got her more laughs than partners. So she doesn't try, but she does lean closer to him, for that conspiratorial head-together whisper that she and Olive have perfected. It feels very little-girl-slumber-party to her, but men seem to like it, and at least it counts as being herself. "No whips or handcuffs, no kinky stuff, but he tells you what to do. If that sounds interesting, I'll be in the booth right over there." 

She slides out without another look, but she can hear behind her the noise of him sliding out as well and fumbling for his wallet to pay his tab. 

When Zach comes to their booth, she stands and introduces Ned with that same businesslike air. Ned opens his mouth and she silences him with the look that she's developed as the equivalent of stomping hard on his foot, for those days when she's wearing a dress instead of pants and can't safely stomp. This is one of those situations where talking will make him more nervous rather than less, so she just shepherds all three of them out to the parking lot, where Zach agrees to follow them home. 

Ned is silent in the car, so maybe her look was too effective. 

"I'm sorry," she says, "but you know you're a nervous talker." 

"Obviously. But that doesn't mean you can just shut me up. Nervous habits are a stress release. Like a steam valve. You close the steam valve and bad things happen, like exploding dumpling steamers. Remember the exploding dumpling steamer? We don't want that." 

"No, we don't. But you aren't going to explode like an over-pressurized dumpling steamer. Besides, you're saving your words. You're going to need them later." And yeah, she does try for seductive on that last bit, but only because she sounds silly enough when she tries to be seductive that it might make him laugh. 

"I won't run out," he says, but he does laugh. She pulls her long white gloves out of the glove box ("That's amazing," Ned had said. "You're using my glove box for gloves. I didn't think that was even allowed."), and reaches over to squeeze his hand. 

They park in the Pie Hole lot and head up. She takes the stairs instead of the elevator, because climbing stairs in silence is a lot less socially awkward than riding in a elevator in silence. Somewhere around the second landing what they're about to do becomes abruptly real to her. She can feel two sets of eyes on her ass as she climbs, and feels borne upward by a wave of dizzying heat.

If Zach has anything to say about the two beds in the bedroom, he wisely doesn't say it. There is a moment of awkwardness, hovering inside the bedroom door, before Chuck motions Ned to the other bed. He sits and swallows hard. 

Zach reaches his hands out for her, but Chuck catches his wrists. "Ned," she says softly. "He's here to be your hands. I found him for us, but I can't handhold you through this." 

Ned clears his throat and coughs a bit, a dead ringer for a nervous toastmaster, and Chuck thinks for a second that this is about to be an unmitigated disaster. But then he says, "Kiss her," and Zack does. 

"Slowly. And your hands on her back. And in her hair, right up in her hair, oh God--" Apparently Chuck isn't the only one who's been wanting to tangle her hands in hair, and she wonders for a second how it must feel to be Ned, seeing the cascade of brown all the way down her back every day. But then Zack tightens his hands and she feels the slight tug all over her scalp as he uses his grip to tilt her head back. Then he can't kiss her slowly any more, because she's opening her mouth and sucking desperately at his tongue and begging him for more with tiny pained noises. 

"Undress her," Ned gasps out.

He gets her dress off quickly enough and she steps out of her shoes. He finds the clasp to her bra in the front, snugged right between the swells of her breasts, and undoes it without difficulty. She arches and pushes her chest towards his hands, but he seems to have figured this game out, figured out what it does to her to hear the words from Ned as she feels them acted out on her skin, and he only lets the back of his hands brush her, tantalizing. Chuck could almost scream.

"Your hands on her… front," Ned says. Zach raises his eyebrows, obviously not so far gone with desire that his sense of the ridiculous isn't fully operational. He places his hands on her stomach and Chuck has to stifle a giggle. 

"For God's sake, you very obviously know exactly what I-- Her breasts. Touch her breasts," Ned says, sounding annoyed and aroused and embarrassed in equal measure, and she could just about cheer for him actually getting the words out. Zach slides his hands up and cups her breasts, and he's good at that. Orders of magnitude better than the fumbling high school boys that are her last reference point. He strokes lightly and cups and lifts slightly, and then rolls his thumbs in little motions that leave her nipples stiffening and little sparks shooting along her nerves. 

Chuck reaches for the buttons of Zach's shirt, undresses him as quickly as she can because she knows Ned will forget to mention it. Zach takes his hands off her and his mouth off hers only the bare minimum to get his shirt over his head. She's just in time, too, because as he steps out of his faded boxer shorts, Ned tells them to get comfy on the bed. 

She glances over at Ned, risking breaking the strange trance of identification of voice and hands, but she has to see. She's afraid she'll find him still dressed and sitting, hunched over his lap in pained awkwardness the way he used to, but he's gotten himself naked and is laying on his side in bed. His hands are jammed up under the pillow like it's the only way he can restrain himself. 

"Use your mouth," he says. His eyes stay locked on hers, and she feels hot, wet suction and a tongue flicking at her nipple. A wave of the strangest feeling washes over Chuck, strange the way deja-vu is strange, or maybe intense vertigo. For all that she can see his empty mouth, it's somehow Ned's tongue sending that fire through her, and Chuck cries out. 

He works on her like that for awhile, toying with first one and then the other, alternating between with little tongue flicks and firm suckling while his hands roam over her hips and stomach and sides and she bucks and shakes. 

"You'd better kiss her again. I don't think I can stand it if you don't kiss her again." In the few seconds it takes Zach to squirm his way up her body, Chuck sees Ned put the back of his hand to his mouth. His lips go a little white against the knobs of his knuckles, like the lack of pressure on his lips is physically hurting. 

Then Zach is laying over her and kissing her, and Chuck's brain shuts off. She can feel the entire length of his body covering hers, the coarse hair on this legs and the hard planes of his chest and his cock nestled in the crook of her thigh, and she rolls her body up against his to capture every inch of that skin contact. Zach's hips jerk against hers, and he finally seems to be losing that smooth control that has let him follow Ned's instructions so carefully.

Chuck rolls and reaches for the condoms in the drawer, but Ned cuts her off.

"No. Not yet. Down. Keep using your mouth--" But before they can call him on it again, Ned says, "Lick her," and the need in his voice is so raw Chuck feels a chill go down her spine.

Zach slides back down her body, and there are a few seconds of awkwardness as it becomes obvious that she has no idea what do to with her legs, how she's supposed to lie. But he gets her sorted easily enough and starts licking her, long gentle strokes, playing around her entrance, sucking her lips into his mouth a little, licking more firmly up by her clit.

For a few moments, Chuck is so excruciatingly awkward she forgets to be turned on. She's conscious of smelling strong, and the fact that she hasn’t shaved, even trimmed, and she'll take forever to come like this, and this isn't what the poor guy signed on for--

Then Ned shifts to the other end of the bed so he can see. He finally has his hand wrapped around his dick, not stroking yet but holding, and his whole body is nearly quivering with intensity. Between her legs, Zach gives a low groan and licks her harder, and Chuck is so turned on she forgets to be awkward.

"Put your fingers-- in her," Ned says, and Zach does, and then, "Suck on her clit a little…" and Zach does, and then flicks and licks and sucks a little more, and Chuck shakes apart.

Somewhere in the midst of it she hears Ned ask, "What does she taste like?" his voice so rough and shaking so much she can hardly understand him. 

When she can think again, she looks down at Zach. "Let him know what I taste like," she says, and he gives her a momentarily confused look. She reaches down to grab his wrist, slide his fingers into her again, then pushes his arm over. 

Ned clambers off the bed and kneels on the floor to reach. When his lips close around Zach's wet fingers, he closes his eyes and groans, sucking desperately. His hand on his cock starts stroking now, and he moans out, "Oh God," and, "Now-- go ahead-- oh." 

Chuck wonders if she should tell Zach she's never done this before; would it make it hotter for him, or make him too worried? But she's boneless and relaxed and glowing and she feels a little empty inside, a little achy now that his fingers are gone, so she passes him the condom and spreads wide and only whispers, "Carefully. Go carefully." 

He does, slow stretching slide, and he watches her face carefully and pauses when he sees it go tight with discomfort. She could kiss him for that-- could, so she does, and then gives him a little gasping nod and he starts moving. 

It's incredible, nothing at all like her fingers or a toy because his whole body is covering her, and she can feel his muscles flexing and breath coming fast. He moves harder and she goes a little out of her head at that, at the feeling of being pounded into, clean and full and mindless with pleasure. 

She manages to watch Ned come, and hear him, and then she's lying in bed so drained she doesn't even have the energy to keep her head up to see him anymore. 

Zach pulls out and walks to the bathroom without a word. She hears the water run and the toilet flush, and then he's back. "You two are crazy," he says, looking at her with a soft fondness in her eyes. "I don't know what's up with you, but that was fun." 

"Yeah, it was," she manages, and starts to shift over to make room for him. 

He shakes his head. "I should go."

"Do you need--" she struggles up onto her elbows. "I'll walk you back out, I mean," but he just shakes his head again and leans down to give her a gentle kiss. 

After she hears the door close behind him, Chuck stands up and goes out to the living room, giving Ned a wave to stay in bed. He looks worried. 

She comes back in with a chair and her hairbrush, and sets the chair down between the beds with the back facing Ned. She settles down and brushes, and when she's done she carefully lifts her hair over the back of the chair and tilts her head back as far as it will go, letting her hair hang straight and loose toward the floor. 

Ned watches, transfixed. 

"Go ahead," she says, knowing, though she can't see him. Only moments later she feels it; the tiny, hesitant motions and soft tugging of his hands running through her hair. 

A long time later, Ned says, "Thank you." 

And then, after another minute: "For the… both things. Really. I mean. That was amazing, it really was, and I would never have been able to find somebody, that's your sort of thing. But for this, too, I don't know how you knew and I didn't think I could--"

"Ned," she whispers. "I know." 

They sit like that a long time longer.


End file.
